


love in the library, there are no rules

by emjee (MerryHeart)



Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Genre: College AU, F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Truth or Dare, theatre kids know how to do party games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 19:03:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13864035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MerryHeart/pseuds/emjee
Summary: It's the end of the semester, champagne is consumed, Lumiere takes charge of a game of truth-or-dare, and Belle reveals some intimate details.





	love in the library, there are no rules

**Author's Note:**

> This is a thank-you/celebration fic for me reaching 600 followers on tumblr! (Nevermind that I'm currently not that active right now.) I asked for fic suggestions, I received, and now I present, by way of thank you, parties and smooches and college au.

Lumière’s cry of “WE MADE IT!” was punctuated by a cork pop so loud it made Belle jump.

“A little warning next time, darling,” Plumette suggested, laughing and knocking her shoulder against Belle’s.

“I thought the celebratory declaration was warning enough,” said Lumière, who began pouring champagne into plastic cups.

The living room of Gamma Sigma Beta house was full of Belle’s very favorite people—Adam, Plumette, Lumière, Cogsworth (who had finally broken up with his overbearing girlfriend and was free to do as he pleased), and a few other Gamma Sigs she knew in passing, plus assorted girlfriends and boyfriends.

“To the end of the semester!” said Adam, accepting a cup from Lumière. “Although you’d think a frat of this caliber could do better than plastic; good Lord, who’s in charge of these things?”

“Just be grateful it’s not a red Solo cup,” Lumière replied. “Glass is an investment I do not trust us with, my friend.”

“And that is probably entirely fair.”

“To the summer!” cried Plumette.

“The summer!” everyone echoed.

“And to this one,” Lumière gestured to Adam, “graduating with his very own bachelor of arts, although he remains a bachelor no longer.”

Belle blushed as people turned and raised their glasses to her.

“It’s not as though I’m going anywhere,” said Adam, who had already been accepted to stay on for a master’s. “I think we should really be celebrating Belle, who survived her first year of college with no arrests, no hospital visits, no mono, no all-nighters, and straight A’s!”

“You can’t be sure of that yet,” she said. “I just turned in my last paper yesterday.”

“Bah,” said Plumette, “we know you, so we can be sure.”

“And,” Adam added, “I’m pretty sure she’s halfway done with her degree despite having only been here one damn year. At this rate she’ll beat me to finishing grad school.”

“And what do I get if I do?”

“I would say claim cognitive superiority over me for life, but I think the ship has sailed on that one.”

“He must be in love,” Plumette murmured so only Lumière could hear. “Have you heard him say anything like that before?”

“He is absolutely in love,” Lumière replied. “On that, as he says, the ship has sailed.”

They whiled away the evening in a cloud of champagne and finger food (“Adam,” Belle chastised, “save some brie for the rest of us!”) until evening turned to night and night turned to very early morning. Everyone was sitting on the floor at this point, just buzzed enough to know it was time to stop drinking if they didn’t want to feel like death in the morning.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Lumière, his cadence slow and lazy, “we have here one genuine empty champagne bottle.”

Adam piped up, “We actually have three.”

“I stand corrected. Ladies and gentlemen, I hold here in my hand one genuine empty champagne bottle. Satisfied?” Adam nodded. “I don’t know how you managed to earn a diploma without them expelling you for being obnoxious. Now, you may or may not know that unlike those who left theatre behind with high school, I have continued in my pursuit of the thespian arts.”

There were sarcastic cries of “No,” “Really?” and “Whoever would have guessed?”

“Yes, yes, thank you all, I’m building to a point. My point is that nobody knows how to do a fucking party game better than theatre majors, and so I present to you: Truth or Dare in a Bottle.”

“The hell is that?” someone asked.

“We’re still working on the name,” Lumière confessed, “but it’s basically a combination of spin the bottle and truth or dare. Spin the bottle is a stupid game because nobody like watching awkward making out, and also we could be here all night discussing the issues of consent involved, but Truth in Wine—oooh, that’s a better name, we’ll go with that—combines the randomness of spin the bottle with all the soul-baring of truth or dare, because let’s face it, we’re all shameless and would rather spill our darkest secrets than have to do anything that requires moving at this hour and level of intoxication.”

“Beautifully said,” Adam cried, slow clapping it out for his best friend.

“And we place the bottle like so,” Lumière said, leaning into the center of their circle, “and… _voil_ _à._ ”

He set it spinning on the hardwood floor. Around once, and twice, and—

“ _Eh bien,_ Mademoiselle Belle,” Lumière announced. “Who wants do the honors?”

“I will,” said Plumette. “Truth or dare?”

Belle leaned back against the couch. “Truth.”

“First kiss. Whole story. Go.”

“That’s not a question.”

“You’re right, it’s even better.”

“Hey,” said Lumière, “be glad we haven’t started in on never-have-I-ever. She’s even more ruthless then, and also, Adam would be out by now.”

“Pass me a brownie,” Belle said to Adam, “and we’ll do this.”

 

_Several months earlier_

“Can you move?”

Belle rolled her eyes spectacularly, silently lamenting that she was facing a bookshelf instead of Adam Beaumont, who could benefit from being on the receiving end of an eye roll every so often.

“I _could_ move, technically,” she replied, “but I don’t feel inclined to at the moment.”

“You’re really choosing to go with the can-versus-may argument? What are you, a second grade teacher?”

“I suppose that would make you the second grader.”

This was what her afternoons and evenings had become: shelving returned library books after hours with a pretentious senior who wasn’t content to just be annoying in their shared classes, but had to bring his nonsense into the Romanticism section. Why couldn’t a girl just re-shelve her Jane Austen in peace?

“Hold still, then.”

“What?”

“If you’re not going to move, I’m going to reach over you. So hold. still.”

Belle pursed her lips and did as he said. It would be more sensible to move, she reflected, but she felt she had to stand her ground. Literally, if need be.

And then Adam was right behind her. He didn’t touch her, he wasn’t threatening, he was just _there_.

She realized this was the closest she’d ever been to a boy.

It was…warm. Proximity to a human body that operated at 98.6 degrees would do that, of course.

And he smelled good.

It wouldn’t surprise her if he wore cologne. One thing— _one_ thing—she could say in his favor was that he was always impeccably dressed and groomed, which made him stand out, as far as she had observed, from the vast majority of male college students. Whatever he was dabbing over his pulse points, it was…intoxicating. And delicious.

Oh. Oh dear.

Belle heard him breathe as he reached over her head to push one book back onto the shelf, then a second. “There,” he said. “Was that so hard?”

She was still holding a small stack of books. Without consciously deciding to, she tucked them into the space at the end of the shelf.

“Belle.”

She took a deep breath and turned around.

Technically, Adam supposed, he was _looming_. One hand was braced on the shelf above her head. He should remove it. He didn’t want her to feel trapped. That was no way to go about things.

But she didn’t seem nervous; her eyes weren’t darting like she was looking for a way out. He would have stepped back in a heartbeat if he thought that’s what she wanted.

He bent his head toward her instead, slowly, almost imperceptibly. Give her time to push at him, to shake her head, to tell him no.

She did nothing, said nothing. He kept going.

So this was happening, she thought. Despite being infuriating, he really was attractive. Definitely smart—too smart, probably—and clever, and he smelled good, and those eyes, oh my…

She thought she heard him whisper, “Can I?”

And then she grabbed his tie and pulled him the rest of the way down.

A lifetime of reading had given Belle an assortment of gifts, including a romantic heart and an active imagination. Kissing was more or less as she’d imagined it, only infinitely better.

Adam’s lips were soft against hers, warm, passionate without forcing. She felt his hand press against the small of her back; she hooked an arm around his neck and buried her other hand in his hair. And despite never having kissed anyone before, she felt anything but passive. The whole thing, she thought, was incredibly intuitive.

So she was kissing him back, and then it got deeper, somehow, rougher, and she liked it. He sucked her bottom lip between his teeth, pressed her against the bookshelf. She tightened her grip on him, pulled him even closer, moved one of her hands to fist in the fabric of his shirt.

Good God, if this was what she had to look forward to now, after-hours was about to become a lot more bearable.

 

_The present_

 

“No _fucking_ way,” said Lumière. “Adam, you cad, you never told me that!”

Adam looked stunned, an empty plastic cup dangling from his hand. “I…uh…”

“Bravo, Belle, you’ve done what we all thought was impossible,” said Cogsworth. “You’ve rendered him speechless.”

“I don’t know how anyone is going to top that,” Lumière declared, “and yet, the game must go on.”

He gave the bottle a hefty spin, and they spent the next half hour regaled with tales of Plumette’s most undignified moments in high school, Lumière’s wildest audition experiences, and the first (and only) time Adam had streaked.

And then the bottle spun back to Belle.

“First time,” Plumette commanded. “What? I take no prisoners.”

 

_Several months earlier, the same day_

They kissed until Belle’s mouth was sore, until she could barely breathe, and then Adam tipped her head to the side and kissed down the length of her neck, sucking at the skin where her neck met her collarbone until she gasped.

He pulled away, and they stared at each other.

“Well,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“That…happened.”

“It did. How do you feel about it?”

“What do you mean?”

“On the scale of ‘huge mistake, we will not speak of it again’ to ‘ravish me’, what are your thoughts?”

She bit her lip. _Ravish me?_ She had shivers all over.

“Your face is not giving me hope,” said Adam.

“Hope?”

“I don’t want to sway your opinion, but that was one of the finer kisses of the century.”

“The century just started.”

“Yeah, but I’m calling it now.” He withdrew a little, giving her space. “Seriously, though, if you don’t—”

“It was wonderful.”

And his he broke into a genuine smile.

Belle had seen Adam Beaumont’s smirks, quirks, and shit-eating grins, but his real, honest-to-God smile was a sight to behold.

“At the risk of sounding completely depraved, and with the caveat that you can of course say no and I will fuck right off, what are the odds of me eating you out right now?”

 _That_ was completely out of left field. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s just, kissing you like that makes me want to kiss you in other places. I want to make you feel good—I’ve—” He looked up as if asking heaven for courage. “I’ve been thinking about it for weeks.”

Oh _had_ he, now? Belle felt an unexpected rush of satisfaction. So she’d kept him up nights, had she? Driven him to distraction? She felt so…powerful.

“I—yes,” she said.

“Mmm,” he moaned, ducking to kiss her quickly before kneeling before her. “Say the word and I’ll stop, got it?”

“Okay. Um, no one’s going to—find us?”

“It’s 6:15 on a Friday.”

“That’s fair.”

“Thank God you’re wearing a skirt,” he said, running his hands up her legs.

“Um, in terms of what you’re going to find…up there…”

“Yes?”

“I don’t—I mean I don’t shave or any—”

“You’re already perfect,” he interrupted. “However you are.”

He hooked his fingers around her underwear and pulled them down, then disappeared under her skirt.

He raked his fingers through her curls, exposing her to his touch. His tongue was a pleasant surprise, like a warm and sunny day at the end of November. Belle let out a sigh. She touched herself often enough—having a handle on your own pleasure was important, after all—but this was something only someone else could do for her.

Adam swept his tongue over her, then pressed kisses to all her most sensitive areas. His pace was leisurely, almost lazy, and he was working her into a quiet frenzy. And then she felt his tongue dart _inside_ her, and she knew what she wanted.

“Adam?”

He was out from under her skirt in an instant. “Shall I stop?”

“You said, on a scale of ‘huge mistake’ to ‘ravish me’?”

“Yes.”

“Ravish me.”

Her first kiss, her first—whatever it was called when you were on the receiving end of extremely good cunnilingus—why not her first fuck? She was ready, and able, and absolutely willing.

He raised one eyebrow, then two.

“Here?”

“Um, I certainly don’t have a problem…”

He stood up and kissed her again, fiercely, stoking the warmth that was already burning inside her. “Are you on anything?”

“I’ve got the implant in my arm.”

“Smart girl.” He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and produced a condom. “Just to be safe.”

She leaned back against the bookshelf as he undid his belt. “I don’t like to be called a girl.”

“My apologies.”

“It’s just that, in the eyes of the law I’ve attained my majority, I vote, I’m getting a college degree, I’m physically capable of bearing children, which is frankly terrifying—I think I qualify as a woman by now.”

“That is a completely fair point,” he said, pants and boxers around his knees, his length sheathed. “Step out of your underwear.” Belle did as he said. “Lean like you are now, good, and bring your leg around my hip…” He caressed her leg and drew it to him, nestling himself against her. She could feel him against her entrance.

“Kiss me again.”

He did, intensely, and she felt him rock against her, working his way inside her. She was wet from his mouth and from her own arousal, and already so close…

Once he was inside her, she felt more stretched than she’d ever been, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. She buried her face in his neck as he began to thrust, rocking them both against the shelf, which was mercifully backed up against a wall.

She felt remarkably clear-headed about the whole thing, at least until he slipped a hand under her skirt and began to work her clit under his fingers.

“Oh, that’s—that’s good, Adam—”

“That’s right, say my name, Belle, Belle…”

“Adam…”

She came quietly; the orgasm moving through her seemed to go on forever, and she clung to Adam both for balance and to stop herself, she thought, from floating away completely. He finished shortly after she did, then carefully disentangled himself and made sure she wouldn’t fall over as soon as he let go.

Once they were both steady and their clothes were back in place, he excused himself to the bathroom to dispose of the condom he’d removed.

She leaned against the wall, wondering if he would actually come back or if he’d just stroll out of the library, another conquest under his belt.

Barely a minute had passed before he returned. She had no idea how they proceeded now. Did they say goodnight and go back to annoying the hell out of each other? Did this mean…anything?

“Hey,” he said as he strolled back in. “I was thinking—do you wanna grab some pizza?”

There was a strange fluttering in her chest. “Pizza sounds great.”

His genuine smile was back.

 

_The present_

“I’m calling it,” said Lumière. “No one will top that, ever, world without end, amen. Goodnight everybody, I’m for bed.”

And without further ado, he departed for his room upstairs, Plumette not far behind him.

Adam, Belle, and the small remnant that was still awake stacked the dishes and decided to bother with them in the morning.

Fifteen minutes later, Adam and Belle were entwined in Adam’s bed, sleepy and exhausted and inexpressibly happy.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Adam said, with less force than he might have mustered if it hadn’t been two in the morning.

“Tell you what?”

“That that day in the library was both your first kiss and your first lay? What the hell, Delacour?”

“I didn’t think it was relevant. It’s not like you _asked_.”

“God, you were like that without any practice?”

“I mean, I do _read_.”

Adam gave a sleepy, half-drunk chuckle and kissed the top of Belle’s head. “Imagine what we’ll be like with five more years of experience.”

It made Belle smile that he was thinking about them in the long term. “You were so good, you know.”

“You must have had an insane amount to drink if you’re stroking my ego.”

“No, I mean you were good to me. I was green, you were a senior, we didn’t even know if we liked each other…you did everything right.”

Adam hugged her close against his chest. “I love you. And you make me so proud. Even if your most salacious confessions can be coaxed out of you via Lumière and a champagne bottle.”


End file.
